The forest path, on which Oswald was walking merrily, seemed to be
little frequented by foot-passengers, and still less by vehicles. It
must have been nearly impassable in winter; but now, in midsummer, it
was all the brighter and really romantic. The ditches on either side
were badly kept, and every now and then the grass and the broad
plantain would creep all the way across from side to side, and in many
places the tall beeches and old oak-trees formed a dense canopy
overhead. The farther Oswald penetrated into this leafy wilderness the
quieter the forest became, so quiet and almost lifeless that he stopped
the song which he had begun in his joyous happiness, as if he feared to
disturb the forest in its slumbers.
For in these hot afternoon hours the forest assuredly does slumber. The
green ocean of leaves no longer moves in swelling waves; quiet and
immovable it drinks in the heat of the sun. Scarcely a leaf rustles
here and there in one of the trees. Perhaps the little noise awakens
another sleeping neighbor, and they whisper and tell the disturber of
their peace that this is not the hour for chatting, and then they fall
to dreaming again. The birds are hid in the thickest foliage and await
the cool of the evening. The tiny mothers doze on their nest over their
half-fledged young, and papa sits near by on a branch, his little head
snugly ensconced under his wing, and sleeps, tired as he is with his
early rising, his indefatigable singing all day long, and his busy
hunting after worms and midges. They know that now is the good time for
them, and dance merrily in the red rays of the sun, which slip
stealthily through the branches, or they creep and hurry, and hasten
through the warm, soft moss. Deep silence! But suddenly there arises a
hoarse peculiar cry, in short, rapidly uttered notes, which sound like
the voice of anger. That is the hawk, the robber of the forest. He is a
wicked fellow, whom his bad conscience rarely allows to sleep, and that
is the reason why his cry is so sharp and hoarse, as he is drawing high
up in the blue air, proudly and lonely, his wide mysterious circle
above his realm, the peaceful sea of leaves.
A curly-headed boy, who was watching his geese near the edge of the
forest, had told Oswald that the road to Berkow was only about half an
hour long, and could not well be missed. Of course he had taken it for
granted, in giving his information, that the traveller would mind his
way and not go astray. But as Oswald had not attended to the road, but,
as was his habit, rather to everything else, as he had preferred
leaping the ditches on either side every now and then, and rushing into
the sacred halls of the beautiful forest, with their mighty pillars and
lofty domes, he had long since lost his way. He had, indeed, for some
time followed a narrow footpath, which led nowhere in particular, and
only tempted him to penetrate deeper and deeper into the forest.
Oswald stopped and listened; he thought he might hear the voice of a
human being, or the blows of an axe; but he heard nothing but the cry
of the hawk and the beating of his own heart. He called out merrily:
"Which is the way to Berkow, O hawk?" and the echo answered as merrily:
Hawk!
At last it became lighter between the trees. He fancied he saw the end
of the forest. But instead of that he only stepped out upon a clearing,
which was almost entirely occupied by a small lake, covered with reeds
and rushes. Walking along the edge, he frightened a loving couple of
summer ducks, who rose from the reeds and flew with wild haste across
the morass towards the wood. Then again deep silence!
"Wait and watch," said Oswald, to himself. "In the mean time I will
rest a little, for I begin to feel rather tired."
He hung his straw hat upon a branch, spread his handkerchief over a
moss-covered root of a secular beech-tree, and stretched himself
comfortably on the soft heather.
"This place is made to sleep in," he said to himself, dreamily
following with his eye the dragon-flies, who now shot like arrows
across the dark waters and now stood as if spell-bound. "Who knows but
this may be an enchanted wood, a fragment of forgotten romance, a
little remnant of the grand old forests of which we read in legends and
fairy tales; a portion perhaps of that forest in which the count lived,
who, every time when his notes became due and he could not pay them,
sold one of his daughters--a way of paying old debts which they say has
not yet gone entirely out of fashion. And he who falls asleep in this
forest, as I fancy I shall presently do myself, has to sleep on
for a few hundred years, and when he wakes up once more his beard is
snow-white and hanging down to the belt. Then he is justly astonished
at himself, and asks the first peasant he meets with where the way to
Berkow is!"--"Berkow," replies the man, politely; "never heard of
such a place."--"I mean the chateau in the forest, where Melitta
lives."--"Melitta? But, my dear sir, that's an old fairy tale."--"A
fairy tale?"--"Why certainly! My old grandmamma has told it me I know
not how often." Many, many hundred years ago there was a great forest
standing in this country; and in the forest lived a fairy, and her name
was Melitta. She had the most beautiful dark-brown eyes, such as the
children of men are never known to have, and a voice sweet as honey,
and that is why the people called her Melitta. She was the most
beautiful and sweetest of fairies in the world; but she had one little
weakness; from time to time she would allure a young man into this
forest and make him lose his way amid the tall oaks and beeches, each
one of which was exactly like the next one. Then she rejoiced. And when
she wanted to set a poor fellow wandering in this way, she mounted her
horse Bella--for this fairy had nothing but what was beautiful around
her--and travelled far and wide, till she found a stupid man. For she
liked stupid men the best. Then she charmed him with her beauty, with
her soft, teasing, bewitching ways and her honey-sweet voice; and in
order to make the enchantment lasting, she gave him something--perhaps
a rose. If he was stupid enough to accept that, he had to wander the
very next day into the forest, whether he would or not. Then, of
course, he lost his way, and ran to and fro and round about, till at
last he would lie down to sleep at the foot of an old beech-tree. And
when he is lying there watching the dragon-flies as they try to catch
each other, and looking at the water, and listening to the whispers in
the rushes, and the low murmurs in the branches above, he hears low
voices saying----"Melitta, are you never coming? Get down from Bella.
Do you not see that I am chained to this place? Oh, you darling, you
sweetest, you most lovely of women! Melitta, sweet one! a kiss, one
single kiss! And you are going, going now--but what is that? Away,
brown witch! No, no--you are not Melitta."
Oswald raised himself on his elbow and stared, drunk with sleep, into
the brown face that was bending over him. "What do you want?"
"No harm done, my dear young gentleman! Saw the young gentleman lying
there; did not know if dead or asleep. 'Tis dangerous to sleep in the
forest so near the swamp, if one is not accustomed to it from childhood
up."
Oswald, who had in the mean time recovered himself entirely, examined
the woman more closely and recognized in her one of the many gypsy
women who infest that country, telling fortunes, hawking trifles,
playing on the jewsharp, begging, or more frequently stealing. Thus
they go from fair to fair, and from village to village. This one might
have been twenty-five or thirty years old, as far as one could judge
from the fire of her black eyes, the round, half-naked arms, and the
firm carriage of her tall, slender form; but wind and weather, hunger
and sorrow, perhaps also evil passions, had made sad havoc with the
once good-looking face. The features were too sharply marked, the eyes
too deeply sunk, and even the abundant bluish-black hair showed already
here and there many a silvery streak. And yet it was a pity she did not
rather display the thick tresses in their graceful windings than the
rags of red stuff, which she had wrapped, turban-fashion, around her
well-shaped head. Her dress was poor and much patched, her feet quite
bare. Oswald now also noticed that an oddly shaped instrument was
hanging on one of the trees, and a variety of quaint tools were lying
about. A donkey, adorned with a red feather and a bright-colored
blanket, was wandering thoughtfully through the trees and enjoying now
and then a mouthful of the rich, hard grass.
"Are you quite alone, my good woman?" asked Oswald.
"No; I have my boy here, the Cziko; he is gone into the wood to fetch
water; this here is fit only for frogs and toads."
"And how did you get to this secluded spot?"
"Know the place for years. Always stop here when I come to this
country. Cheaper lodgings here than in the tavern, my good gentleman."
"Then you can show me the way to Berkow, I suppose. Is it far from
here?"
"Not far at all. The boy, the Cziko, shall show you."
The woman put her hands to her mouth and imitated the call of the
wood-dove in the most perfect manner. At once the cry of the hawk came
back from the forest, and soon afterwards a boy came running out, who,
however, stopped short, with an air of distrust and apprehension, as
soon as he saw the stranger. The mother uttered a few words in an
unknown tongue, and he seemed to feel at once reassured. He came
forward, offered Oswald fearlessly the tin cup which he was holding in
his hand, and said: "Will you drink, sir?"
The cup was not particularly neat, but the boy far too strikingly
handsome to be refused, even if Oswald had been less thirsty than he
really was. Cziko was perhaps ten years old, but he also looked older.
The damp fogs drifting over autumnal fields, and the snow-storms
whistling through the hawthorn bushes had washed out the youthful
freshness of the boy's face, and given an expression of sorrow and
defiance to the dark gazelle eyes, so that one could not look at them
without feeling saddened.
The woman saw at once, with the doubly sharp eye of the beggar and the
mother, what a deep impression her boy had made upon the stranger.
"Yes, he is a fine boy, the Cziko," she said, "swift like a squirrel,
and brave like a wild-cat, and he plays the cymbal like no other."
"Is that a cymbal hanging on the tree there?" asked Oswald, somewhat
surprised that the instrument was really existing somewhere else but in
Holy Writ and poetry.
"Go, Cziko, show the gentleman what you know," said the woman.
The boy took the instrument down, laid it carefully on the stump of a
tree, and, seizing the two sticks, began a most wondrous music,
striking first slowly and then quicker and quicker. His heart seemed to
be overflowing with music; his hollow brown cheeks flushed up; his dark
eyes, which he raised now and then dreamily to the tree-tops, shone
brightly. Then he fell into another movement and another air, and after
a few bars, the woman, who had in the mean time made a brisk fire under
a kettle, began to sing, in a low, melodious voice, one of those
Sclavonic national songs, whose plaintive air is apt to make the heart
melancholy and the eyes tearful. Oswald sat there, leaning his head on
his hand and listening as in a dream. He felt as if the sad notes, such
as he had never heard before, were calling forth entirely new feelings
in his bosom; as if they excited deep sympathy in him with his own
life, and the life of all other beings, and made him long and yearn
after an infinite, nameless happiness.
The song came to an end. Oswald started up. He looked at his watch.
Three hours had passed away since he had entered the forest; if he
wished to see Melitta to-day he must not lose another moment.
"Can Cziko show me the way to Berkow?" he said, going up to the woman
and offering her a few pieces of money. The gypsy swept the money from
his open hand, as if she only wanted to see the lines in it better, and
holding it by the tips of the fingers, she seemed to study them
eagerly.
"Well," said Oswald, "not much that is good there?"
"Much good, much evil," said the gypsy, shaking her head.
"That is the way of life," said Oswald, "and what is the good?"
"Much good, much evil," repeated the woman. "Every good line crossed by
a bad line; cannot tell you the good without the evil."
"Well then, read it as it comes!" said Oswald
"Much happiness, and yet not happy," murmured the gypsy. "The enemy of
men and the friend of women; quick to hate, quick to love; varied life,
early death."
"Well," said Oswald, "I do not object to that. But how about the women?
I am interested in that."
"Much good, much evil," repeated the woman, bending still lower over
the hand, as if she did not wish the faintest line to escape her. "Much
love, very much love, and yet so little happiness, ah! so little!"
"Am I in love now?"
"Yes."
"And with whom?"
"A very great lady, very beautiful and very rich."
"Hm! And does she love me?"
"More, far more, than you love her."
"And where is the evil?"
"Much evil, much evil! You cannot be faithful."
"How do you know that?"
The fortune-teller shrugged her shoulders. "Here stands another lady,
and there still another--you love them all. That ought not to be.
Brings you no good luck."
"But about the varied life and early death, is that quite sure? Well
then, the harm cannot be so very great. Here, take this as a reward for
your good news."
"Thanks. Take only for good luck, which I foretell, not for ill luck."
"Then I do not wonder that you are so poor, my good woman. Then take it
for the trouble I am giving Cziko."
The gypsy took the money with real or feigned reluctance, and called
the boy, who had, in the mean time, continued to improvise new melodies
on his instrument. She whispered a few words in his ear, in her own
language, and at once the boy started up and said to Oswald: "Will you
follow me, sir?"
"Good-by, my good woman," said Oswald, looking with a feeling of
interest into the dark, brilliant eyes of the gypsy woman. "When you
come to Grenwitz, you must not forget to ask for Doctor Stein."
The woman crossed her arms over her swelling bosom and bowed low.
Oswald picked up his hat and followed Cziko, who was already half
concealed by the trees.